


Home For Your Birthday

by WanderingTiff



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: College AU, Jean's Birthday, M/M, coming home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 14:19:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1431631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingTiff/pseuds/WanderingTiff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean celebrates his twenty-second birthday, but he feels lonely while everyone else is happily celebrating his special day. It is not the same without Marco there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home For Your Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> The happy fic of my Jean's Birthday saga.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr: shingeki-no-flute-fluff

_"Wake up, horse face!"_

_I freeze_ when feeling something hit my face--which just so happened to be a pillow--and jolt awake. "Huh?!"

"Happy Birthday!" Eren exclaims with mock enthusiasm.

I sigh and shake my head. "Thanks, Jaeger."

As fun as it is having Eren as a roommate... It isn't fun at all. Are you kidding me? Jesus, I wish I could have transferred the hell out of this dorm when I had the opportunity. I then hold out my hands, and Eren just stares at them.

"What?" he mumble.

I narrow my eyes. "Don't tell me you didn't get a fucking gift for me."

"What do you mean?"

"Come on!" I groan and get out of bed. "Even I gave you a gift on your birthday!"

I then feel a package collide with my stomach and double over. Eren has a smug look on his face.

"I got you one, chill your ballsack." Jaeger crosses his arms.

Rolling my eyes I open the gift. I raised a brow. "It's just what I always wanted."

It is a horse stuffed animal. And it has a picture of my face taped onto it. Are you fucking serious?

"It's your son!" Eren scoffs. "Isn't he beautiful?"

"Fuck off," I mutter and throw the damned toy at him.

"Jean!" He looks appalled. "You're a terrible father!"

I just roll my eyes and get in the shower. It's my twenty-second birthday, to be more specific. I'm just counting down the days until my last day of college. Then I could be an independent man and on my own. As excited as I am for that, I'm still a bit lonely. Today is just a really off day for me.

As I'm rinsing myself off in the shower, I flinch and draw in a sharp breath. Icy, cold water was poured down my back, and I hear obnoxious laughter as I glance at that motherfucker's silhouette tossing a now empty cup in the air.

"Jaeger, you shithead!" I'm shivering and trying to keep warm in the steamy shower. Eren is still laughing.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

\--

_"Hey, Happy Birthday, Jean!"_

_"Thanks,"_ I mumble as I look at Bertholdt and Reiner. Annie's next to them, but she does not really seem interested.

"Twenty-two!" Reiner laughs and clenches his fist. He is just about to pound it into my arm when I stop him by gripping his wrist.

"No. Birthday. Punches." I grit my teeth as I speak.

"Aw man."

"Told you, Reiner," Annie mumbles. "Are you going to give him his presents?"

"Oh yeah!" Reiner shoves two boxes into my arms. "They're from the three of us!"

"Thanks," I sigh. "I'll open them la-- shit!"

"ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! FIVE!!"

"YMIR!" My arm is already hurting as this bitch was giving me birthday punches! Damn her.

"TEN! ELEVEN! TWELVE!"

I would punch her in the fucking face if my hands weren't full.

"FIFTEEN! SIXTEEN!"

"Ymir, knock it off!" I exclaim, but she's still. Fucking. Going."

"TWENTY! TWENTY-ONE! TWENTY-TWO! And...."

"NO!" I quickly shift away.

Ymir rolls her eyes. "Fine. Then no good luck for you."

"I can do just fine without it," I mutter."

\--

 _The professor was going over the_ last few sections of notes for today. Meanwhile, I feel someone poke my shoulder. I glance over.

"Happy Birthday, Jean," Armin smiles.

I give a small smile back. "Thanks."

"You okay?"

I nod. "Yeah. I'm fine."

Armin is unsure, and I can tell. But he is just rolling with it. "Okay. Do you want to open your present? I have it right here."

"Sure." I nod, and he places a bag in front of me. "What's this?"

"Open it," he insists. "The lecture's over."

I shrug and open the present quietly. It was a wristwatch.

"You told me that your watch stopped," Armin says. "So, I got you a new one."

"Thanks," I smile. I put the watch on around my wrist. "It's just like the one Marco...." I trailed off, and I lower my head.

Marco's the only person that won't wish me a happy birthday.

"Jean?"

I glance up and nod a little. "Yeah?"

"Now I know what's wrong," he sighs. "Hey, it's okay. You can still have a good time today."

I just shrug. What's the point of having a good time if he won't be here? "I guess I can."

"And you will." He gets up when it's time to leave. "Where are we having dinner later?"

"We're going to Red Robin," I mutter.

"Yum," he chimes in and we leave to walk on campus. "What's so bad about Red Robin?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to go to Dairy Queen."

Armin laughs. "Maybe we can get you a cake from there. How does that sound?"

"...Better."

"Good."

All of us sat down at my apartment and ate lunch. We are all talking about my "birthday party" at Red Robin--I fucking hate Red Robin honestly, but this was Reiner's idea and convinced me--and I just nod along. I glance around at everyone in the sitting area. There is an empty seat next to me.

I stare at that spot. Despite it being my birthday, I just feel really lonely, like something is missing. And I know exactly what that something is. I'm not in the mood to really celebrate today. However, everyone else is excited, but I feel like it's for a different reason.

"So Jean, what do you think?"

I jolt up because I totally was not just spacing out before. "Hah?"

Eren sighs. "He wasn't even listening!"

"Jean." Christa looks at him. "We decided that maybe instead of going to Red Robin, we'll just have some pizza here."

"Thank God." I am actually really relieved to hear that. "Now I can eat in my underwear."

"Oh please." Eren shoves my shoulder. "Nobody wants that shit."

"That's the whole point!" I smirk.

"You boys are idiots," Mikasa mumbles.

\--

 _I decide not to just wear_ my underwear. Instead I just wear flannels and jeans, not really taking the time to dress nice or anything. We're just going to eat at home, anyways. I clean up around the house since Eren won't get off his lazy ass to come help me. Whatever, as soon as the semester's over I won't have to deal with his bullshit.

Ymir and Christa came in first around four. Then Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie came soon after. Armin was already here playing Titanfall with Eren, so soon they came out as well. Connie and Sasha were the last to come over, and I order the pizza as soon as they got settled.

"Present time!"

"Not yet," I muttered and looked at Connie. "Wait until the food gets here." I look at Eren. "Where's Mikasa?"

"She's not going to be here until we have cake. She's running an errand."

I shrug, and we all just sit here talking about random shit. I'm the least bit interested in all honesty. Even if all these guys were my friends, they were closer with Eren than they were with me, with the exceptions of Connie and Sasha. I was perfectly fine with that, though.

"You look glum," Connie then tells me.

I glance at him. "I'm fine, really."

"You've been like this since lunch," Sasha sighed. "What's up."

"It's just... not the same."

"What is?" Connie asks. "Celebrating your birthday without Marco here?"

"Yeah." I sigh and run my hand through my hair. "It actually really sucks without him here."

For some reason, it just really wasn't as fun without Marco here. And it was really depressing to think about.

"Hey, that's not true." Sasha pats my back. "You can still have fun. Trust me."

"Yeah, it's not like we're boring or anything," Connie smiled. "It will be okay."

I nodded along but I do feel a little more reassured. "All right. I'll take your world for it."

Then there was a knock at the door.

"The pizza!" Eren quickly jumps up to answer the door.

I rub my brow. "Money's on the counter, dumbass!"

We all eat and drink a shit ton of soda to pass the time. I play my music on my stereo, and some of my friends are annoyed with my taste in music.

"Hey, it's my birthday," I laugh. "I had to listen to Lil' Wayne on Eren's birthday, so today, I want to put on Mumford and Sons."

"It's torture!" Eren groans.

"It's not that bad." I roll my eyes. Some of the tension that I've been feeling all day was starting to ease off. That's a good thing, I guess.

"Now can you open your presents?" Connie groans.

I breathe out a laugh and sigh. "Okay, fine."

As soon as I say that there is a mountain of gifts on top of my lap. I make no move to protest, though. I still haven't opened my presents from Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie, so I open those first. They gave me a delux edition of Star Wars and an Imagine Dragons soundtrack.

"You guys know me so well," I smirk. "But...I like Star Trek, not Star Wars."

"I told you!" Bertholdt groans.

"Nice try. Thank you, though," I insist.

Next was Connie's. He actually did get me a few Star Trek DVDs. "See? Best friend."

Connie laughs while Reiner pouts. Meanwhile I'm too busy opening Sasha's present. I now have my very own piggy bank. Eren's gift was that stupid horse from this morning, so I didn't have to worry about his present. And I have Armin's gift around my wrist. All that was left was Mikasa's gift, but she wasn't even here. But that's okay. I like what I got this year.

All of them then check their phones simultaneously. I'm really confused, and I look at my own phone in case I was going to get what everyone was getting. Of course, I have no new messages. Typical.

"Okay!" Eren then calls. "Jean, how about we have the cake?"

"What about Mikasa?"

"She's on her way up here," Armin insists. "Besides, she's not really up for singing."

I shrug and then get up to get the cake. For it being my birthday, I have been following a lot of their orders today. Oh well. I take the cake out of the fridge, and thank god that it was at least my favorite flavor. I couldn't take another thing getting wrong because of people getting mixed up or forgetting.

After placing the cake on the table, Reiner comes over and gets the candles. I feel a bit old as I see all twenty-two candles get placed on the top, and they were then all lit. Everyone is crowding around the table, and meanwhile I am looking for Mikasa. They said that she would be here for cake, so the fact that she wasn't here right now was throwing me off. I see Bertholdt check his phone. What was with everyone checking their phones today? It was starting to get annoying.

"Okay, let's sing," Bertholdt states cheerfully.

Something is up. I don't know what, but I'm just going to let it slide until I find out what it is. They all agree, and I stay by the cake, leaning down slighly as I prepare to blow out the candles.

 _"Happy Birthday to you."_ They all start singing, and they are all horrifically out of tune while Eren is just being completely obnoxious about it.  _"Happy Birthday to you!"_

I hear the door open but I don't look over, knowing that Mikasa just arrived.

 _"Happy Birthday, dear Jean,"_ They sing, and I am blushing as Eren obnoxiously adds "Horse face!" I can't help but laugh at that though, and so does everyone else.  _"Happy Birthday to you."_

Everyone claps and cheers, and I roll my eyes as I look at them.

"Come on, blow out the candles," Eren chides.

Connie nods. "Don't forget to make a wish!"

I sigh and close my eyes. I make my wish, and it's a long shot.  _I wish that Marco was here._ Then I take a deep breath and blow out the candles. All twenty-two were blown out, and they all cheer obnoxiously. I smile brightly for the first time all day.

"Happy Birthday, Jean."

I then freeze when hearing the voice. That didn't belong to anyone in the group. The room goes silent, and I turn around. My eyes widen.

An olive-skinned man about a couple of inches taller than me is standing by the door wearing an army uniform. His dark hair was hidden mostly by his cap, but his freckles make him undoubtedly recognizable. He smiles at me, and I move closer as he takes off his cap.

"M-Marco?"

He walks over and smiles at me. I quickly meet up with him and hug him tight, a wide smile plastered to my face. He hoists me up and spins me around, making me hold onto him tighter and blush.

"You're here!" I gasp. "I didn't think you would come."

"I will always be home for your birthday," Marco assures me and smiles as he runs his hand through my hair.

"Welcome home." We quickly kiss each other as I smile, and of course we get a positive reaction and comments from the peanut gallery--meaning Eren--and that makes the two of us blush.

Marco pulls back and reaches into his pocket. "I have something for you."

"Well, you should," I joke. "It's my birthday, after all."

"Ah, it's uh... For when there are less people here."

I blush at hearing that. "Whoa, down boy!"

Marco laughs and then looks over at the table. "How about we have some cake, huh?"

"Yeah, good idea." Everyone agrees, since they were weirded out by his awkward choice for a birthday present. Of course I am going to love this "gift" later. I spend the rest of the party with Marco, catching up, listening to his stories, and helping ease his tension from being away for so long in combat. I am just so happy that he is here, safe and sound. He is here, and he picked the perfect day to come home.

This turned out to be a really great birthday. I'm going to love being twenty-two.

**Author's Note:**

> Anything you want to say or share? Comment below or on tumblr, I track the tag #stop flute 2k14  
> Thanks for reading ^^


End file.
